


He was silently sitting there

by arabian_batboy



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, batfamily, brain-dead homeless Jason, classic Bruce and Jason angst that we all love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-10-31 22:25:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10908684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabian_batboy/pseuds/arabian_batboy
Summary: It's the death anniversary of Jason Todd and Bruce Wayne is spending it patrolling alone. Until he met a mute boy living in a dark alley that looked exactly like his dead son. He couldn't believe it, so he didn't.-In which Bruce come across Jason in one of Gotham's allies before Talia found him, but because he hasn't had his first dip in the Lazarus Pit just yet, he's still in this half-dead state without any abilities to communicate.





	He was silently sitting there

It was 27th April.

Bruce grudgingly woke up from sleep that day, grudgingly got out of bed and grudgingly made his way to the Batcave to grudgingly prepare for patrol.

After putting on the Batsuit and making his way to the Batmobile, he was pleased to see Tim not in costume but instead sitting on the Batcomputer organizing files in a red hoodie and pajama pants. Apparently he got the memo after what happened last year.

He knew it would do no good to open closed doors, but he couldn’t help but to try at least. So he walked toward him, “Tim, I-”

“I know.” Tim cut him off as he started to type something on the computer. “And I understand, so....it’s okay, really.”

He knew it wasn’t okay with Tim and he also knew that Tim thought that Bruce wanting to be completely alone on this day, even while on patrol, was an unhealthy thing that he really needed to work on. But Bruce would worry about Tim later, as long as he would truly stay in the cave for the night and not secretly follow him like he did last year then he can manage.

So after the silent agreement have been done, Bruce gave a short nod to his new son and then quickly hopped in the Batmobile to make his way out of the cave.

He didn’t have anything planed for the night. It was a simple patrol, meaning all he needed to do was drive around the city to look for anything or anyone that would deserve the attention of the Dark Night.

But fortunately for Alfred and Tim, but maybe unfortunately for Bruce, after hours of driving around, Bruce has realized that tonight patrol was going to be just an easy-going boring patrol that didn’t involve any real work. He could tell just by how Gotham's streets were unrealistically free of serious crimes. Bruce hated that, it was almost as if the city was taunting him. There were so many nights were he would have loved a patrol to be easy and unnecessary like this one, so he can cut it short and return home. But tonight wasn’t one of those nights. Bruce NEEDED for something to happen, he NEEDED a criminal to show up so he can punch them on the face.

Because right now? The lack of action is starting to let his mind wonder to other things. Things he really didn’t want to think about right now, because he simply knew he can’t handle them. At least not for tonight.

So after desperately circling the city a couple of times to make sure that there was TRULY nothing that needed his assessment, Bruce unenthusiastically reached out for his earpiece to inform Alfred that he is returning home. Half-hoping that Alfred wouldn’t pick up.

As he was waiting for his call to be answered, Bruce got out of the car to breath some fresh air and to look at his surrounding at the same time. He ended the patrol at Robbinsville, definitely not a place that you would find on a “10 Best Places to Visit in Gotham City!” list. Once upon a time, Robbinsville was actually a pretty decent place to live in, believe it or not, but bankrupt after a bankrupt after a bankrupt can really take a toll on someone, or someplace. That’s why one of Gotham’s most developed corners have unprecedentedly turned into a gruesome place filled with failed projects, abandoned buildings and a sizable homeless population.

And at that moment Bruce heard a faint groan from a nearby alley to his left. And he smirked at that.

“Speaking of the devil.” Bruce said as he turned off the earpiece, he was hoping he would get the chance to at least do one useful thing during this long uneventful patrol. And Batman’s job isn’t always punching criminals on the face, sometimes he do other less ‘flashy’ stuff. Stuff like helping those who are less fortunate. So he immediately begun to slowly follow the source of the noise.

Maybe it was his eagerness to do something to take his mind of what he was thinking all day, or maybe it was Robbinsville's reputation of being the host city of so many homeless people. But Bruce decided he was going to assume that the person in the end of this alley was a homeless person in need. And really, Bruce knew that 9 out of 10 times that the noise was coming from was a homeless person. But at the same time 1 out of 10 was more than enough for Bruce to take caution, so because of that he walked as carefully as possible inside the alley, with a small flashlight in his hand that he used to explore this narrow tunnel.

And right there only seven, maybe eight, feet away from him, a small figure was sitting on a cardboard with their arms around their knees. Bruce was actually surprised to see how still this kid was sitting, normally that wasn’t the reaction he got when he approached civilians, especially young ones.

Bruce relaxed and let his guard down after seeing how the small and thin person sitting there didn’t have anything with them that could be used as a weapon. So he quickly reached for his utility-belt, for a specific pocket that isn’t usually used for fighting crime, to pull a card with the number of “Wayne’s Enterprises Shelter For Homeless Youths” to give for the youngster in the shredded red hoodie in front of him. Just like he did with every homeless child he met.

“Kid, are you awake?” he gently asked so not to scare them. With his left hand pulling the card from its pocket, he used his right hand to point the flashlight at the kid’s face.

But he couldn’t finish the task because he immediately dropped the card after the sleeping boy lifted his head up, just five feet away from him with his sleepy blue eyes glued on Bruce.

It was supposed to be a simple task. He had done it a million times before, with a million different homeless kid before. From many different ages, colors, genders and backgrounds. He had seen it all.

Except for the said homeless kid to have the same exact face of his dead son, that was a new one. And for one brief moment he couldn’t help but completely forget about the ‘No Names’ rule and utter the name that have been on his mind all day, “Jason?”

The person who definitely wasn’t Jason but for some reason looked like he could be his clone just stared back at him with unfocused eyes.

Bruce swallowed and blinked his eyes a couple of times, wondering if the boy sitting across would disappear after one of those blinks.

Jason was still silently sitting there.

“What is this?” He didn’t know who he was asking this exactly. “Why is this happening?” He dropped the flashlight and it fell next to the card. He took a hold of his head with his hands and started exhaling and inhaling in hope that it would calm him down and he looked back at the boy, and even though he couldn’t believe it, he tried his luck again. “….Jason?”

Jason was still silently sitting there.

Desperation was starting to take over him, he knew that this wasn’t possible, at least not to him. Maybe it could happen for someone like Superman, but to Jason, his son? No, it can’t be. Bruce dropped to his knees right in front of the boy, he could feel the human warmth coming from his body and pulled back his cowl. Something you will rarely ever see the Dark Knight do in public.

“Please….if you are Jason, PLEASE say something.” He begged with tears taking over his vision and his shaking hands reaching toward the boy.

Jason was still silently sitting there.

His hands stopped shaking. He looked down in both betrayal and shame. Betrayal because Jason didn’t respond to his name, and shame because he actually believed that was Jason.

But both of those feelings have been replaced by something else shortly after, laughs. They started off small and inaudible but then grew into a maniac sort of laugh. The kind of laughs he was used to hearing from his many enemies here in Gotham. He threw his head back as every wicked laugh in his body left and then after he was done he angrily looked down again.

“OH I KNOW WHAT THIS IS!” He roared in the small alley, making the nearby rats run away. “I _DAMN_ well know what this is!” He took a few rapid breaths that failed to calm him down. “ _YOU_!” He pointed an accusing finger at the boy. “You are NOT him! You hear me?! You are NOT him!”

Jason was still silently sitting there.

That made Bruce even more angrier. “Y-You are only made of my imagination because, because…” And then he stopped and shame took all over him again, because only then did he just realize how stupid he was. Jeopardizing his secret identity and yelling, at what he hopes, an empty alley. “Because it’s 27th April. His anniversary, his death anniversary.”

“That’s why I’m seeing you, right?” he asked the boy.

Jason was still silently sitting there.

After he got his answer, Bruce pulled his cowl over his head and stood up. This isn’t the first time this happened to him, but it was the first in a really long time. Aside from Alfred not a lot of people knew about this, but as a child Bruce there were often days were he imagined his parents magically returning to life with no explanation whatsoever many times during his childhood and he would believe that with no questions asked and then jump to their arms. Because for his small child mind, being happy was more important than being real.

But he wasn’t a child anymore.

And Jason Todd is _dead_ and him being alive can not be real. And the longer he stayed in this cursed place the more he questioned that. So to save what left of his sanity, Bruce quickly marched out of the alley and pulled his grappling gun out without looking behind him. It would just make things harder.

His grip tightened as he heard the familiar sound of the gun’s hook piercing through the concrete that usually gave him the green light to go. And even though his mind was telling him it was an absolutely bad idea and that he should just leave now as fast as he can, he couldn’t help but glance behind him one more time.

Jason was still silently sitting there.

His mind was right, that WAS a bad idea. So he finally listened to it and left, already thinking of excuses to why he was late to Alfred.

“I thought I saw my dead son.” Wasn’t a good excuse, was it?

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so technically speaking this is my second fanfic so far but at the same time it could still count as my first because I actually wrote it a while ago as a simple drabble, but I did go back to it and then turned it into this. So what do you all think? Please tell me down below (Btw, in case some didn't get it, the Jason in this story is the real Jason, Bruce just doesn't know that. So yeah, that's where the angst come in.)


End file.
